(Moderators; This reply may be a duplicate, if so apologies, and please delete.)
Have been reading, and rereading, this thread as it is updated with additional data. Consider myself extremely fortunate never to have collected, nor even contemplated collecting, militaria of the Royal Naval Division. However, as a retired naval intelligence officer, find the subject particularly the forensic analysis, to be fascinating.

Having identified Paddy early on in my membership in the forum, as both extremely knowledgeable and forthcoming with assistance on the subject, I have tried within my limited capabilities to integrate his expertise (and active cooperation) with associated subjects in my blog page. It seems to have been recognized and appreciated by virtue of the resulting very heavy reader traffic.

Just a momentary Segway to reinforce the comments davec2 has made earlier in this thread. Recently, after a lengthy search (about three decades) I found a spare magazine for the near mint Webley .455cal. Pistol, Self-Loading, Model 1912 Mk I, I had previously acquired (1982), in excellent condition. The seller knew exactly what he had, and the significant ”buy now” price reflected that fact. But to his credit the seller had included a complete set of close-up colored photography of the magazine, allowing me to make a detailed one-on-one comparison with the original gun’s magazine, an absolute identical match. The seller had an excellent feedback record on a reputable Internet auction site, with the only significant reservation being he was located in Warsaw, Poland. After much introspection, and knowing I could use PayPal plus a credit card if recourse was required, decided to make the purchase. In an added exercise in “due diligence”, conducted an Internet search on the seller’s name and web site. Buried in the hits, were the comments of one individual, citing the seller and his entire operation as a complete scam. Immediate gnawing in the stomach! Bottom line, magazine received in record time, exceeding all expectations, just as promised by the seller. Obviously one sullen, dissatisfied, and vindictive individual trying to sully and subvert the reputation of an honest dealer. Truly libelous, if you ask me. Needless to say, left glowing feedback on involved web sites, and personal message of thanks to the seller.

Back to the subject at hand. It is unfortunate that a comprehensive forensic template, i.e., litmus or better still DNA test can’t be practically and economically developed. Such a test, if achieving a quantifiable confidence level, would be a “God send”. Not likely to happen any time soon, so will personally continue (with specific thanks to Paddy) to update my very limited data base of verifying criteria, hopefully being of some small assistance in the process. The interested reader may want to glance at the recent addendum; http://arnhemjim.blogspot.com/2016/0...-addendum.html . Suffices to say this particular thread has added a great deal towards those objectives.

Hi Michael
Firstly, I am no expert and there are variations I believe, but I don't like the Hawke badge. The beak looks wrong, the top of the bird's head looks odd and there are flaws between the 2 srolls. Unless it is an OSD collar badge, the poor detail on the rear is not a good sign.

Like Alex I'm not a fan of your Hawke badge. The shape of the head and the beak are the first things that give it away for me then the font of the scrolls and the alignment of the letters on the scrolls. On what I consider to be genuine badges the E of Strike sits almost above the E of Hawke, on most copies the E of Strike sits either right in the middle of the gap between the K & E of Hawke or even partially over the K like yours. I believe the back is even worse, the Gaunt plate is the nice crisp modern type found on copies whereas the genuine ones are pretty poor quality stampings in comparison, the positioning of the plate is also wrong, it should be between the 2 lugs and not on the back of the bottom scroll. Lack of detail is also a bad sign. I have attached pics of what I consider to be a good one and pictures of a right facing officer's OSD collar so that you can see the differences.